Library Life

Norbu from the Tibetan translation department stops in front of me, “Rose-La, what is cognitive empathy? It is the final term I need to translate for a psychology book I am working on with Geshe-La.” 

Loving the library life

Up till that moment I was dreaming in the sun trying to warm up after a morning at my editor’s desk in the cold box of my office at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. But I can help Norbu - his team and the English publications team of the LTWA are the reason I am here working even as the temperature plummets.

All other foreign travellers are leaving for Goa, for Karnataka, anywhere warmer than Dharamsala.

But I am here till Christmas because I promised my charming boss, LTWA director Geshe Lhakdor that I would work for him for three months. And because I like my team.

Who’s in the team in this higgledy piggledy labyrinth of Tibetan-style buildings, alleyways and narrow steps?

Right from my first day, my colleague and friend Sonam Dolkar has made me laugh, cooked me lunch, told me where to find an optician or a handmade carpet, and shared her office space and online shopping challenges. 

Tashi and his wonderful chai kettle; Sonam
Dolkar looking cold - note her Ugg boots
under her chuba or Tibetan dress. It is
Wednesday, so staff wear traditional dress.

Not to forget Sonam Dawa, our cool dude designer and manager, who made sure I had a PC - with Internet - that worked from my very first day. That had never ever happened to me in my entire working life.

The most popular man in the LTWA is dashing Tashi the tea man; twice a day he brings in his massive silver kettle and pours mugs of steaming sweet chai at my desk.

Then there are Dawa and Tashi (different Tashi - there are a limited number of Tibetan names at the LTWA) who run the canteen and spend all day making chapatti breakfasts, cups of coffee, snacks and soup, wicked samosas - and at lunchtime whip up a popular 60 rupee thali for all staff and students. Oddball stuff happens around the canteen: there's a secret daily lunchtime gambling shed of Mig Mang that has been known to involve monks; and Tashi's music playlist is eclectic, the lambada featured on high rotation last week.

I turn accurate translations into good English, but we also publish in Hindi and in Tibetan; academics  come from all over the world to study the texts in the Library archives. A continuous stream of serious students comes to learn Tibetan or listen to revered teachers. People come for a fortnight and stay three years.

In striking contrast to the people who work hard are the signature ‘stray’ dogs of the complex. Even by Dharamsala’s relaxed standards, these are well-fed, friendly hounds; owned by no-one, but petted and fussed over by all. Find a spot in the sun in front of the library and sleeping street dogs will be lying there knowing that they are welcome to relax where they want.

Asleep on the Library steps

The only thing that stirs the dogs is the occasional presence of the Labrador-sized langur monkeys who bound through the alleys and over the roofs, eating the heads off roses and vanishing up walls with a single bound and a contemptuous flick of their tails.

In and around the LTWA offices, which are part of the larger complex of Tibetan Government-in-Exile department buildings, flow maroon-robed monks and nuns. The Nechung Monastery, the home of the State Oracle of Tibet, is part of the complex,

Children of the staff who live on site play soccer after school on the open terrace at the Library steps or run errands around the alleys.

Elderly traditionally dressed Tibetans circumambulate (see On the kora) the Library because for them the building holds the true refuge - the precious Dharma that is the key to all Buddhist thought and devotion.

The LTWA isn’t just a library - it holds the records and heritage of the Tibetan people now dispersed around the world; it holds a significant trove of the written riches of Tibetan Buddhism. And it translates and publishes and teaches and spreads those written riches around the world.

PS: Cognitive empathy is being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and see things from their perspective even if you do not have sympathy for them. Daniel Goldman, author of Emotional Intelligence, points out torturers use cognitive empathy to work out how best to hurt someone. I guess that Norbu-la’s text wasn't using that aspect.